Re: Possible mistake in backup documentation - Mailing list pgsql-docs

From Magnus Hagander
Subject Re: Possible mistake in backup documentation
Date
Msg-id CABUevEzRrW5M8aiw0bho8_keekc1hzksn8N6nCGacgTP_x7pTQ@mail.gmail.com
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In response to Re: Possible mistake in backup documentation  (Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at>)
Responses Re: Possible mistake in backup documentation  (Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at>)
List pgsql-docs


On Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 2:32 PM Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at> wrote:
On Tue, 2020-09-22 at 14:17 +0000, PG Doc comments form wrote:
> In "25.3.3.2. Making An Exclusive Low-Level Backup", you said that "The
> exclusive backup method is deprecated and should be avoided. Prior to
> PostgreSQL 9.6, this was the only low-level method available, but it is now
> recommended that all users upgrade their scripts to use non-exclusive
> backups". But in the example in "25.3.6.1. Standalone Hot Backups" you use
> the exclusive version of backup command. Is it a mistake or not?

Yes, that's true.

Well, technically it is *correct*. It's just rather silly that we are using the deprecated API in the example.


How about the attached patch?

Perhaps that is too complicated, but I have no idea how to make it simpler.

For this example, can't we just show two sessions. That is, "in a psql, run pg_start_backup(). Then in a different session, copy all the files, and then back in psql run pg_stop_backup()" or such?

This is still just an example of a low level operation, where the recommendation is (and is there iirc) to use a different tool for it already.

 
Ceterum censeo, we should not deprecate the exclusive backup API.

Well. We should depreciate the way it works now, but we should also provide a *better* way to solve the actual problem. This is not necessarily an API that looks the way the deprecated one looks -- the focus should be on providing a solution to the problem, not to un-deprecate the API.

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